My ideal music-room: a theatre of dreams

One the one hand, you can give a nice music-class and have fun anywhere with virtually nothing. All you need are ideas and willing people. On the other hand, from two years of teaching I have learned that a room has an enormous influence on what happens and on how students behave.

If I think of an ideal space for a music room, my thoughts begin with my previous job in Amersfoort at Het Niewue Eemland (Meridiaan College) where I worked during the 2007-08 school year. My colleague there, Paul Koolen, has been teaching there for over twenty-five years and designed the music room himself—it is truly a “school music paradise.” It is a large room situated next to the auditorium (aula), bigger and with a higher ceiling than in Hilversum. There are windows on three of the four sides of the room, which gives a feeling of light and airiness. The space between the “les-ruimte” and the “speel-ruimte” is clearer and more pronounced. There is a winding staircase that leads upstairs to three practice-rooms, one of them extremely large. It was a pleasure to teach in that room, the only problem being that there were three music teachers and due to scheduling conflicts I was often forced to teach in other rooms besides the “speelparadijs.”

My large-scale vision is not merely that of a “muzieklokaal,” but (at the risk of sounding too much like Pierre Audi) that of a “theatre of dreams.” As in Amersfoort, I would like the music room to have two floors, with a staircase leading upstairs to practice rooms. For the bottom floor, I would begin with a very large soundproofed space (not in any way isolated from the rest of the school) with high ceilings and and many windows as possible. It seems to me that the ceiling is a very important element when considering a music-room: sound should not be smothered and should be able to “rise” like a flower or like bread in an oven. For me another important element is flexibility. I do not like music or music-making to be in any way static. I like things to be constantly in flux and reflecting the changing circumstances of my environment. I would still have a division between the “les-ruimte” and the “speel-ruimte” but there would be more potential of mixing the two together within a large space.

For the “les-ruimte,” I would thus use an open space as a basis, and have Japanese-style sliding doors and partitions employed to give the room changing shapes. These would be larger or smaller depending on the size and nature of the group. For me the concept and the pure space itself, with its integrity and beauty, is more important than what is in the space. In other words, instead of seeing a bunch of keyboards, guitars, and drums and saying: "ok, what can we do with all these instruments?," I would rather begin with an interesting concept and then decide what means can best serve it using a pure space as a basis. A solution also needs to be invented to attack the problem of seat-setup. It takes way too long to move the seats and tables into the proper “opstelling.” I would prefer a system in which large groups of seats and tables (in different formations and shapes) were moveable on wheels which could be easily shifted so that it would never take more than five minutes to go from one “opstelling” to another. The “les-ruimte” would be equipped with a beamer, screen, and a music whiteboard.

The “speel-ruimte” would be slightly more fixed than the “les-ruimte,” because, of course, instruments are involved. I would keep the idea of having rows of keyboards on keyboard stands/tables, but there would be more space between the instruments and the keyboard stands/tables could also be moved on wheels. That way students could play at times facing each other, or at times in a circle, or however they or I wished. One idea which I would like to appropriate from the third floor at the conservatory in Utrecht is that of a podium. I would like to have space for a podium which would be the only really fixed element in the room, with microphones, amplifiers, lights, and a mixing board.

In thinking about this essay and the subject in general I have spoken with my present and former colleagues: Emel Spaninks (my former colleague at ATC Hilversum), Mari-Ann Koudijs (my present colleague at ATC), and Harrie Derkx (my colleague at Laar en Berg. Emel and I formulated the redesigning of the room in Hilversum in 2007. Mari-Ann and I are busy further redesigning the room and its contents, and Harrie and I are thinking about what can be done to salvage the room in Laren. So hopefully I have more opportunities to come up with a beautiful new music room!